Weekend Roundup: Triple H, More on WWE Title Match at Day 1, Marko Stunt Update, TBS Title, Impact, Matt Striker Update, Indies

WWE

• As noted before, WWE recently announced most of the participants for this year’s Women’s Royal Rumble match. Among those announced included former WWE wrestler Summer Rae. Rae recently revealed on Instagram that her surprise appearance was originally not planned to be announced beforehand. Rae stated “Okay, so obviously I can’t sleep. I’ve been on Twitter and I am so overwhelmed by the amazing response on Twitter by you guys. Oh my gosh, like, we weren’t even supposed to announce that I was going to be in the Rumble, it was going to be a surprise and then, I found out a couple of hours ago. So I was really nervous to look on Twitter, because people are mean, like, people just be mean on Twitter and the response — everyone was so nice. You guys have me in my feels. Everyone’s so hyped. I don’t know, I’ve just been gone so long that I didn’t know what the response would be like, I didn’t know if it’d be positive or negative and it’s just so good. Thank you so much. All my friends are being so supportive and just the fans like, WrestleTwitter’s just insane, and I’m just so excited, and now I’m happy that I don’t have to keep this a surprise until the end of the month.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)
• As noted before, WWE released several staff from their NXT brand and Performance Center this past week. PWTorch’s Wade Keller reported in a recent PWTorch podcast episode that those spoken to within the company stated that Paul “Triple H” Levesque was “bummed out” over the news of this past week’s set of releases. Keller reported that Levesque’s reaction was due to those who were released were part of a team he had been building up to bring with him to WWE’s main roster shows if the day came where he would be in charge of running the company. Keller stated “I’ve talked with people who had said Triple H was building his team that he would bring with him to the main roster, and if his day came to run the main roster he wanted his group of people. At some point, it was thought that it would include William Regal and Gabe Sapolsky and Road Dogg and they’re gone.” (Transcript h/t: WrestlingNews.co)
• As noted before, WWE announced that Sasha Banks recently suffered a foot injury and is currently expected to be out of action for the next six to eight weeks. Fightful Select reported that following her injury, WWE officials had been under the assumption that Banks would be out of action for a considerable amount of time prior to their official announcement. WWE’s creative team were also informed as early as January 3rd that Banks was not expected to be available for this year’s Rumble event and to “plan accordingly” as a result.
• As noted before, Samoa Joe was released from WWE this past Wednesday. Joe recently reflected on Twitter about his time in the company. Joe stated “Extremely fortunate and grateful to all the young & amazing talent I had the pleasure of working with in the past months. Only saddened at the loss of an “excuse” to see their continued growth & achievement . I am very excited for there future,….. and mine.“
• WWE recently announced that their next investor’s meeting will be taking place on February 3rd and will be focusing on both their fiscal 2021 fourth quarter report and fiscal 2021 year report.
• PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that NXT’s Pete Dunne and Tommaso Ciampa were invited for dark match tryouts prior to the start of this past Friday’s episode of SmackDown in Uncasville, Connecticut. Dunne and Ciampa faced off against each other in a singles match.
• WWE reportedly had an attendance of 3,731 for their December 30, 2021 house show event in Buffalo, NY, 11,600 (10,300 paid) for their January 1st Day 1 event in Atlanta, GA, 3,400 for their January 2nd house show event in Fayetteville, NC, and 5,200 (4,000 paid) for their January 3rd RAW show in Greenville, SC, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
• WWE reportedly has sold around 7,445 tickets for their January 10th RAW show in Philadelphia, PA, around 5,809 tickets for their January 14th SmackDown show in Omaha, NE, around 1,852 tickets for their January 15th house show event in Fargo, ND, around 2,339 tickets for their house show event in Sioux Falls, SD, around 3,213 tickets for their January 17th RAW show in Tulsa, OK, around 4,392 tickets for their January 21st SmackDown show in Nashville, TN, around 3,938 tickets for their January 24th RAW show in Toledo, OH, around 3,600 tickets for their January 28th SmackDown show in Kansas City, around 26,250 tickets for their Royal Rumble 2022 event in St. Louis, MO, and around 3,439 tickets for their January 31st RAW show in Cincinnati, OH as of this past Thursday, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
• Fightful Select reported that their sources within WWE recently denied reports and rumors that Becky Lynch is no longer allowed to use “The Man” nickname due to legal issues with Ric Flair. The source of the rumor was a report in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that stated that WWE had recently given up their legal fight with Flair over the ownership of “The Man” trademark.
• Wrestlenomics’ Brandon Thurston reported that the total Google searches for WWE this past December generated the lowest ever amount for a month in WWE history on the service since 2004. Thurston reported that as a result, WWE recently went from being the fourth most searched company in terms of sports leagues and companies to being the seventh most as a result.
• As noted before, WWE released several staff from their NXT brand and Performance Center this past week. Among those released was Cathy Cornio, also known as Allison Danger in the indies. Cornio’s longtime close friend and WWN announcer Lenny Leonard recently lashed out against WWE on Twitter over their poor treatment of Cornio during her time in the company. Leonard stated “There wouldn’t be enough money in the world for me to work some places. Here’s a thread about one of my best friends in the entire world..It’s a long one.. sorry… You dedicate 20 years of your life to pro wrestling. Endure physical and mental stress and injury but persevere until you are ultimately offered your dream job. Come on down and coach in Orlando. You sign on the dotted line, pack your entire life into a truck and move from Vegas to Florida, uprooting your family, and your child from their friends and school to chase your dream. Three months go by, no performance issues to speak of, by all accounts you’re fitting in well. You are asked to go in to help as they are shorthanded, and you get exposed to Covid… ruining your Christmas by being a good soldier and are forced to quarantine. You survive and make it through New Year’s and your child that you dragged across the country to accompany you is starting their first day at their new school today. You pick them up from the car circle and as they are getting in the car, they hear you are on the phone. It’s your boss telling you you’re fired, three months after you moved across the country for your dream job. Sorry Danger… billion-dollar companies doing record profits restructure divisions and fire people after three months all the time… Good luck to you and your family though. The best part will be when they say she was let go due to budget reasons, completely forgetting that the reason they told her it took three months for her hiring to be approved in the first place was that they were waiting for budget approval to hire her. You need better accountants.“
• Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that Brock Lesnar managed to set a new all-time WWE record with his WWE Championship win at WWE’s Day 1 event on January 1st. Meltzer reported that Lesnar broke the record for longest time span between first and last WWE title wins at 20 years (2002 – 2022). Hulk Hogan reportedly previously held the record at 18 years (1984 – 2002). Meltzer reported that when including all of professional wrestling history for world championships in the United States, Lou Thesz holds the current record at 29 years (1937 to 1966) and at 41 years if you include his UWA world title heavyweight title in Mexico from 1976 to 1978. Meltzer also reported that when including multiple world heavyweight championship reigns in the US, Bill Goldberg currently co-owns the record with Thesz at 22 years (1998 to 2020) with his WCW and WWE Universal title reigns. In regards to Fabulous Moolah and her record of 43 years (1956 to 1987), Meltzer reported that this record runs into several issues due to Moolah owning and being in control of the her belt from 1956 to 1984 and different belts she held despite WWE considering the lineage of those belts to be the same.
• As noted before, WWE made several changes to the plans of their Day 1 event earlier this month due to Roman Reigns testing positive for COVID-19. One of those changes included Brock Lesnar being added to the WWE Championship match at the event and winning the title. Despite intital reports stating that Big E was believed to have been originally planned to retain his WWE title at the event, Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that his sources stated that WWE officials had actually originally planned for Seth Rollins to win the title instead. Meltzr reported that WWE officials had planned for Rollins to defeat Big E for the WWE title as part of his move to the RAW brand following this past October’s WWE Draft.
• Meltzer also reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that had WWE went ahead with their original plans for the WWE Championship at their Day 1 event, Big E likely would have been the favorite to win the Men’s Royal Rumble match due to WWE had planned for the WWE Championship to main event one of the nights of this year’s WrestleMania 38 event in Dallas, Texas.
• Fightful Select reported that WWE recently hired Petey Williams to a full-time backstage producer’s job in the company. Williams reportedly had been on a tryout run for the company since this past October.

AEW

• AEW announced that they will be holding a new set of AEW Dark tapings at the Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida on January 15th.
• During a recent interview with the In The Kliq podcast, Britt Baker gave her thoughts about the importance of Tony Schiavone on the growth of her career. Baker stated “Yeah, oh my gosh, he’s [Tony Schiavone] the best. I will never be able to thank him for how much he’s helped me in all aspects of my life. He’s one of my best friends. Anytime there’s anything going on, good, bad, you know, he’s one of the first I call, first I talk to when I’m excited or to vent about [something] but just how he helped me, especially early on with those promos. When I first turned heel, I don’t know where I would be without him because it was — I was so nervous to be cutting these live promos as a bad guy, something I had never done before and I just always knew in the back of my head, ‘Hey, if anything goes wrong, I have Tony Schiavone here. Like he’s pretty good at this. We’re gonna be okay.’ So just to have him there and along for the ride and just like this lasting friendship I have with him, I’m so thankful for.” (Transcript h/t: PostWrestling.com)
• AEW filed a trademark for “Paragon” for wrestling and entertainment-related purposes on January 3rd to the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
• As noted before, Jake Atlas suffered a knee injury during his match against Adam Cole that was taped this past Wednesday in Newark, New Jersey for the January 7th episode of AEW Rampage. Atlas recently provided an injury update on Twitter stating that “I’m so freaking proud of that match. Thank you @AdamColePro for pushing me to give you ME. My knee will be just fine. Thank you guys for your concern. I won’t be gone long!“
• AEW reportedly generated an attendance of 7,800 (7,500 paid) for their January 5th Dynamite show in Newark, NJ, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
• Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that the updated ticket sales numbers for AEW’s December 29, 2021 Dynamite show in Jacksonville, FL was 3,800 total with 3,500 being paid.
• AEW reportedly has sold around 4,431 tickets fr their January 12th Dynamite show in Raleigh, NC, around 3,674 tickets for January 19th Dynamite show in Washington, DC, around 2,888, tickets for their January 21st Rampage show in Washington, DC, around 5,004 tickets for their January 26th Dynamite show in Cleveland, OH, around 4,210 tickets for their February 2nd Dynamite show in Chicago, IL, around 3,872 tickets for their February 9th Dynamite show in Atlantic City, NJ, and around 6,886 tickets for their March 6th Revolution 2022 event in Orlando, FL as of this past Thursday, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
• Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that GCW owner Brett Lauderdale and indie talents Jimmy Lloyd and Marcus Mathers were in attendance at AEW’s Dynamite show this past Wednesday in Newark, New Jersey. Former Ring of Honor owner Cary Silkin reportedly was also in attendance at AEW’s show, according to PWInsider.
• Dave Meltzer also reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that despite him being noticably absent from AEW programming for some time, Marko Stunt is still under contract with the company. Meltzer reported that the reason for Stunt’s current absence is simply due to AEW currently not having any creative plans for him. Meltzer also speculated that Stunt’s absence from the post-match celebration of Jurassic Express’ AEW World Tag Team Championship victory at this past Wednesday’s episode of Dynamite is very likely sign that he will be among the talent to not have their contracts renewed in the upcoming months.
• This past Wednesday’s episode of AEW Dynamite featured Jade Cargill defeating Ruby Soho to be crowned as the inaugural TBS Champion. Dave Meltzer reported that the decision to have Cargill win the TBS Championship tournament was not influenced by Big Swole’s recent comments about “lack of diversity” issues in the company nor the controversy caused by Tony Khan’s online statements afterwards. Meltzer reported that his sources stated that the decision for Cargill to win was made before the tournament started. Meltzer also reported that Big Swole ended up spoiling Cargill’s victory beforehand as part of her recent comments towards the company. AEW officials reportedly considered at one point to change the winner due to Big Swole’s spoiling the results of the tournament’s finale but decided to stick with their original plans in the end.
• As noted before, Matt Jackson and Brandon Cutler recently tested positive for COVID-19 and were pulled from this past week’s AEW Dynamite and Rampage tapings in Newark, New Jersey. Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that Nick Jackson had tested negative for COVID-19 but was put under quarantine due to him being in very close contact with his brother Matt and Cutler in recent weeks. Nick Jackson reportedly was also unwilling to take any risks due to him suffering a bad bout with the virus in 2020 and his aunt dying from it during that year as well.
• During a recent interview with the Rasslin with Brandon Walker podcast, AEW CEO Tony Khan revealed that this year’s Dynamite Beach Break special will be taking place on January 29th in Cleveland, Ohio.
• During a recent interview with New York radio station Z100, AEW Tony Khan revealed that he recently signed a deal with an unnamed talent that he considers to be a “dream signing” and that this person will be making their debut for the company soon. Khan stated “There is [a dream signing]. They are in North America and they’re coming. Pretty soon. It’s going to be awesome and I’m excited.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)

Indies & Other Wrestling

• Tasha Steelz and Jordynne Grace reportedly were the people responsible for Impact Wrestling holding their first ever Women’s Ultimate X match at their Hard to Kill 2022 on Saturday, according to PWInsider. Mike Johnson reported that Steelez and Grace had pushed the idea to EVP Scott D’Amore on a regular basis but were not made aware beforehand of Impact’s decision to greenlight the idea until the match was officially announced on television.
• PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that Tom Hannifan, former Tom Phillips in WWE, received universal praise backstage for his work on commentary during Impact’s Hard to Kill 2022 event.
• Fightful Select reported that WWE’s recent announcement of Mickie James being a competitor for this year’s Women’s Royal Rumble match did not play a factor in the decision by Impact to have the Knockouts Championship match close out their Hard to Kill 2022 event. It was reported that their sources stated that Impact officials had already made the decision for the Mickie James vs. Deonna Purrazzo match to be the main event around a week or more before the event. It was also reported that James’ contract with Impact Wrestling is not exclusive which is why she is currently able to work for WWE and elsewhere.
• During Saturday’s Hard to Kill 2022 event, Impact Wrestling announced that this year’s Rebellion event will be taking place on April 23rd in Poughkeepsie, New York.
• Impact Wrestling’s EVP Scott D’Amore recently issued a statement regarding Mickie James’ scheduled appearance for WWE at their upcoming Royal Rumble 2022 event on January 29th in St. Louis, Missouri. D’Amore stated “WWE wanted it, Mickie wanted it and IMPACT Wrestling’s philosophy is always to work with other major promotions to create buzz for the fans. Everything is signed and agreed with WWE and IMPACT Wrestling – the only question is whether or not Mickie will enter one of WWE’s most historic annual matches as the reigning Knockouts World Champion.”
• Kimber Lee and Brandi Lauren recently denied that reports and rumors of them recently leaving Impact Wrestling are not true. The source of the rumor was a report from PWInsider that stated that Lee and Lauren’s contracts with the company expired at the end of 2021, following their final appearance on the December 31, 2021 episode of Impact.
• As noted before, Matt Striker departed from Impact Wrestling this past Thursday and was replaced by Tom Hannifan as Impact’s new lead play-by-play announcer. Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that his sources stated that Impact officials made the decision to replace Striker due to them not being happy with the quality of his work on commentary. Impact officials reportedly had been working on plans for the past several months to replace Striker leading into Hannifan’s recent hiring by the company.
• Major League Wrestling recently announced a new match for the card of their Blood & Thunder event on January 21st in Dallas, Texas. This will be a MLW World Heavyweight Championship Falls Count Anywhere match of Pagano vs. Alexander Hammerstone (c).
• MLW talents Dominic Garrini and Kevin Ku reportedly have recently left the company, according to PWInsider. Mike Johnson reported that the departure of both talents from the company was a mutual decision by them and MLW officials.
• All Japan Pro Wrestling announced that they postponed their event that was scheduled to take place today due to several talent and staff recently developing fever symptoms. (English translation via PostWrestling.com)
• Jeff Jarrett filed a trademark for “Slapnuts” for wrestling and merchandise-related purposes on January 4th to the USPTO.
• Game Changer recently announced a new match for the card of their Say You Will event on January 5th in Hoffman Estates, Illinois. This will be a GCW Tag Team Championship match of The Rejects (John Wayne Murdoch & Reed Bentley) vs. The Brsicoes (c).
• GCW also recently announced a new match for the card of The WRLD on GCW event on January 23rd in Queens, New York. This will be a Six-Man Tag Team match of Team Gringo (Gringo Loco, Arez, & Demonic Flamita) against Team Bandido (Bandido, Laredo Kid, & ASF).
• As noted before, New Japan Pro Wrestling announced this past week that they will be making their return to AXS TV on March 3rd. Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that NJPW had signed a deal with AXS TV for the return of their programming on the network several months ago. Meltzer reported that it is currently not known why there was a lengthy delay for the official announcement nor start date for NJPW’s return to the network.
• NJPW reportedly generated a paid attendance of 12,047 for their January 4th Wrestle Kingdom 16 event and 6,379 for their January 5th Wrestle Kingdom 16 event, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
• Pro Wrestling NOAH reportedly generated a paid attendance of 3,181 for their January 1st The New Year 2022 event in Tokyo, Japan, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. This event was notable for being KENTA’s first appearance in the company since January of 2018.